I AM very much obliged to your several correspondents for their information in regard to the supposed differences in the bees of Britain.1 Possibly some few of your readers may be interested in the following case:—The hive bee was introduced many years ago into Jamaica. Having seen it stated that the cells were larger, I procured (through the kindness of Mr. R. Hill, of Spanish Town), some bees and comb.2 The bees have been carefully examined by Mr. F. Smith,3 of the British Museum, and pronounced to be the common species. I also secured the hind and front legs, the antennæ and jaws of worker bees from Jamaica and my own stock, and could detect no trace of difference in size or other character. But here comes the remarkable point—the diameter of the cells is conspicuously greater in about the proportion of 60 to 51 or 52 than in our English combs. The wax seems tougher, and the walls, I think, are thicker. The cells in parts of the comb were much elongated, and the whole hive contained a great quantity of honey. It certainly appears as if the instinct of the bee had become modified in relation to its new, hot, and rich home. But it seems to me an astonishing fact that the cells should have been made larger without a corresponding increase in the size of the body of the architect.—CHARLES DARWIN, Down, Bromley, Kent.4

[The extra thickness and toughness of the wax employed by the bees in the torrid climate of Jamaica render the combs better capable of resisting the heat. The increased size of the brood-cells would better protect the larvae from the same excessive heat by interposing a wider air-filled space between them and the walls of the cells; for air is one of the worst conductors of heat. If such be the true explanations of the changes adopted by the bees, they are additional instances of instinct approaching closely to the confines of reason.—EDS.]